We can hold our liquor, thank you
by proud-to-be-a-panda
Summary: Nico di Angelo, the Ghost King; Thalia Grace, Artemis' Lieutenant; Reyna A.R.A, Camp Jupiter's praetor. What do they have in common? They could hold their liquor well. Warning: May contain foul language.
1. Chapter 1

**Nico**

Many thought that all Nico did during his free time was doing some errands for his father, Lord Hades or go sulking somewhere which he denied fiercely because no, he didn't go sulking.

Actually, running some errands for Hades was true. He did spent most of his time in the Underworld but much lesser ever since the war against Gaia.

His friends (even though he would deny it)sometimes called him 'Ghost King'. But what they didn't know was that it was a real title that he held.

He was Nico di Angelo, The Ghost King and also Prince of Underworld.

Unlike Jason, Percy or Hazel, he actually had to do paperwork. He, unlike those three, had responsibility, even though it was a little bit in the Underworld. He ruled a small part of the Underworld, but paperwork were so, so much that his respect for his father skyrocketed for being able to survive for centuries.

Nico rubbed his temples when he heard someone, either it's Leo, Jason or Percy, banging on his cabin door, telling him to come out and eat and not be a lazy sleeper.

Nico rolled his eyed. Him, _lazy sleeper_!? He didn't even got a wink of sleep with all those paperwork laying around!

 **Thalia**

Thalia Grace had never wanted to hit her head so hard against the table than ever before.

When Artemis chose her to become her lieutenant, she thought it was only helped leading the others when Artemis' gone to a meeting.

She never thought that she would be doing paperwork while Artemis brought the others to do a small hunting on nearby monsters.

When she told Lady Artemis that "I'm ADHD," she thought Artemis would spare her the pain of doing paperwork.

And now she's stuck doing paperwork for eternity. Literally.

Thalia seriously thought that joining the Hunt was just for naught.

 **Reyna**

Reyna glared at the mountain-high of paperwork that were sitting on her desk **s** before sighing in defeat.

She thought having another praetor would helped her with the burden of paperwork but no, Mister Frank Zhang would only helped with everything except anything that was related with paperwork.

Reyna looked through all the paperwork, her glare becoming more intense with every paper she read. The urge to flip the table and leave everything together was very high now.

She rubbed her temples, feeling a headache coming up before her brain was saying something along the lines like _No, burning the paperwork won't work even though it's tempting._

Reyna now felt the urge to punch every single praetor that worked with her in the past or present. (Jason, Percy and Frank)


	2. Chapter 2

_I tried my best. English is not my mother language so if any of you found any grammar and/or spelling mistakes, please tell via review or PM me. And if any of you think some of the sentence can be better, please copy the sentence then type in the better sentence for it. i thank you guys in advance._

 _Enjoy!_

* * *

"Erm…Thalia? Are you okay? You look like you're going to murder someone right now." Annabeth asked Thalia who looked someone who lacked sleep with a murderous aura.

Thalia turned toward Annabeth, put her hands on the blonde's shoulders calmly.

"Thalia?"

Then suddenly the punk girl shook Annabeth like a maniac.

"Damn it! I need sleep! I want sleep!" Thalia looked nothing like her usually self. "I need sleep…" Thalia rested her head on the blonde's shoulder. Annabeth could only patted the girl in sympathy.

"You okay, Thals?" Jason mock-poked his sister who only swat his hand away.

Thalia finally stood straight, a glare set on her face. "I'll be in the Artemis' cabin if you need me…" Thalia said before dragging herself away, gloomy aura around her.

Jason and Annabeth looked at each other questionably before they broke off their eye-contact by Percy's shout.

"Annie! Jason! The Romans are here!"

Truth be told, a bus stopped right in front of Camp Half Blood. Frank and Hazel walked down from the bus first before greeting the rest of the seven plus one Calypso.

"Do you guys seen Nico anywhere?" Hazel asked them after their group hug, eyes raking around to spot the black haired figure.

"Maybe he's already in his cabin." Piper suggested to the daughter of Pluto. "Should we go get him?"

Hazel was about to reply before a pale hand taped her shoulder, scaring her. She instinctly turned around and saw her tired half-brother- Nico di Angelo.

"Nico!" Hazel squealed happily and hugged him. Months of never really seeing him face to face made her misses her only brother more.

"Hey Hazel…" Nico greeted back tiredly but his hug did not feel strong like before. Hazel pulled back and looked at Nico. Dark eye bags under his eyes, his face pale. Not deadly pale, but those tired pale.

"Are you sleeping well?" Hazel asked in concern, even the others really look at Nico carefully. "Yeah. You look like a life-like zombie." Leo said, a hand wrapping around Calypso's waist.

Nico waved their concerns off. "I'm fine. I just need to have a good night sleep." Nico said to reassure the others, especially the not-so-hidden eavesdropper A.K.A William Solace.

"By the way, where's Reyna?" He quickly asked, not wanting to deal with their worries right now.

"Here." An equally tired-looking Reyna appeared/ She was still functioning normally as usual, unless people saw the faint dark bags under her eyes.

The two of them hug. Their friendship has been close during their quest to bring the Athena Statue back to camp.

"Welcome, campers of Camp Jupiter, to Camp Half Blood. Let us gather at the dining pavilion." The newly arrived Chiron announced.

* * *

"Hey, Annie…" Percy called his girlfriend who was sitting with him at the Poseidon Table. When Annabeth looked up at him, he continued his question. "Is it me or is it that Nico, Thalia and Reyna look like they're going murder someone?"

Annabeth turned to see the mentioned three.

At the Hades Table, was sat by Will and Nic. Nico looked deadly tired and was poking his food aimlessly. Will looked at Nico in concern but not saying anything.

At Artemis Table, Thalia was emitting a killer aura, stabbing her poor steak with the fork in hand repeating .The other huntresses were also worried about her but were too afraid to go near her for fear of Thalia snapping at them.

Reyna herself was sitting with Dionysus and Chiron. No one near her noticed anything but if one looked more closer one would found her left eye twitching. Reyna looked ready to fall asleep anytime soon with her mashed potato left untouched.

Annabeth turned to look back at Percy. "You're right, for once." She said calmly.

"Of course I'm ri-Hey!" Percy shouted indignantly.

"Whatcha talkin' about?" Jason and Piper joined them at the Poseidon Table. Usually, Jason was not welcome to sit at the Poseidon Table and vise versa with Percy at the Zeus Table. Judging at how he hasn't been splashed by water yet, he concluded that Poseidon was in a good mood and do not mind him sitting at his table for now.

Strange that nothing happened to them when the two of them sat at the Hades Table and vise versa for Nico.

Percy asked them the same question and they watched the others like Annabeth did.

"All of them look…tired. Like they haven't been sleeping well lately." Jason stated in worry. Out of everybody on this table, he's the closest to the three mentioned demigods. Thalia being his sister; Reyna being his ex-colleague and him being the first one to break down the wall Nico put up.

But before they could continue their conversation, it was forcefully cut off by some children of Ares and the Stolls, yelling about a "Food fight!" and getting slapped by random foods flying around.

* * *

Dionysus and Chiron somehow managed to calm down every demigods. Most however did not leave unscathed. Even Dionysus had a banana peel on his head. How Nico, Thalia and Reyna remained food-free was a real mystery.

"All right brats! Go clean yourself up!" Dionysus demanded, throwing away the banana peel as he grumbled about 'annoying brats'.

A lot of grumblings rang around the crowd of demigods before leaving to change their clothes.

When they returned to the dining pavilion, they so did not expect the next activity.

Apparently, every cabin had to choose their best alcoholic player. But thankfully, not every cabin need to participate. Dionysus already had the permission to do this from Chiron and the others Olympians.

Each table sat two demigod participants. Every table has two cups for each person and it will magically refill by itself.

"It's not that much alcohol," The god of wine said when the Apollo Cabin protested because dammit! They were the ones that had to take care of the hangover demigods. "After all, if you're old enough to fight in a war, you are old enough to drink." He said, sipping on a diet coke.

In the end, most cabins chose their participants including Percy, Jason, Leo and somehow they managed to get Nico to join them. Reyna had to join. Something about a praetor had to participate. Thalia was nominated to join as the Huntresses did not want to be look down upon. The Apollo cabin did not want to join so they could look after the drunk ones.

The rules were simple, One whistle per cup, They would continue to drink until there was only one last demigod left standing.

Percy and Leo looked confident. Percy because alcohol was a type of liquid and he could control water; Leo because he said that his fire could burn away the alcohol on him faster, in theory.

Jason looked a bit nervous but didn't show it. He had drank alcohol before he was brainwashed by Hera. Romans loved a good feast and a feast without alcohol wasn't a feast.

Percy, Jason and Leo quickly engaged in their usual 'I can do better than you' argument. Their girlfriends could only sighed at their boyfriends childish antics.

Will approached his not-so-secret crush as he got worried. Nico looked very tired like he hasn't been taking good care of himself.

"Hey, Death Boy! You hanging there?" Will asked the dark haired boy. Nico was surrounded by stacks of papers. Nico only glanced at him briefly before going back to his papers. Nico was one of the three demigods that occupied one table by himself, with the other two being Reyna and Thalia.

"What's this all about?" Not at least dishearten by his crush's lack of response, Will asked the question, holding up a random paper from the piles and read it. Some of it was in Greek, some in Latin and the rest was completely written in an entirely lost language.

"Paperwork." Was Nico's curt reply.

"For what?" Will was getting curious.

"Underworld business." A plain reply back.

Will was about to ask another question, but the whistle started, ha had to leave until the match ended.

One kid had already got drunk after just one drink. So, a lightweight child of Demeter?

First cup. Second cup. Third cup. This routine kept on going, and demigods falling down like dominos.

Percy and Leo were already red in the face. Even though they could cleanse the alcohol on their bodies, it took time to do so. Jason was still sober, only a light shade of pink on his face, indicating that alcohol was effecting him a little.

They were not the ones in the spotlight, though.

Nico completely drank the wine/beer without any much thought about it, and still looked sober. Heck! He's doing his papers without stopping. This logic seemed to apply to Thalia and Reyna that were also having stacks of papers around them.

Around the 15th cups, only Jason, Travis, Leo, Percy and surprisingly, a son of Venus remained standing. Children of Bacchus and Dionysus were banned from playing but they looked like they wanted to join in. Of course, Nico, Thalia and Reyna were still sober and doing their works.

Just as another whistle's going to blow, Dionysus stopped them.

"Do you finally realize your mistake at doing this?" Chiron asked dryly, staring at Percy and Leo who gained backed some of their sense, even if it was a little bit.

"No…" Dionysus stated seriously. "We should…"

Chiron turned to look at the god of wine.

"Increase the alcohol level in the drink!"

Chiron face-palmed. The participants stared at him with their jaws dropping on the ground.

Just the regular wine with the lowest alcohol already made most of them silly drunk. Increasing it?! Oh gods have mercy on them! Percy could picture the gods watching them from Olympus and saying "Ha! Lol!"

However, someone seemed to agree with Dionysus.

"Good. Because this," Reyna pointed at the cup. "is just an insult to all the good wine around the world." Reyna said, still perfectly sober. Thalia and Nico even stopped doing their works to agree with Reyna before continuing.

The remaining participants turned to look at them in shock.

"Good! I like you. Increase the alcohol level!" Dionysus said giddily, snapping his fingers.

Just three more cups that it took to make Percy and Leo drunk, and another for Jason and the Venus son to make them drunk.

The ones that did not participate in the competition were amuse at how Percy, Jason and Leo were acting like idiots. Their girlfriends were too amused to help them.

So that left Travis, Nico, Thalia and Reyna, much to the others' shock.

Will wasn't sure if he was supposed to feel proud or horrified, but he settled on being horrified. Nico was just 14! How did he learn to handle his alcohol at this age?

When Will returned his attention on the competition, Travis was already out like a light.

The crowd then proceeded to stare at the remaining three badasses drinking like it was just plain water, not even stopping in doing their work, yet somehow their actions become sharper, more focus.

Dionysus let out a low whistle, clearly impressed by the three brats. He had secretly increased the level of alcohol with every round. With how the three of them handle their alcohol, he was very impressed. Even his kids applause them silently, admitting their defeat.

Nico was the first one to stop drinking, admitting that he would got drunk it he continued for a few more cups. The second was Thalia who looked like her usual self again, declaring Reyna's the winner.

"Damn. They're strong." Will heard one of the campers said, and he agreed with that statement.

' _Strong indeed.'_ Will thought as he watched the three gathered their paperwork and walked away, not a sign showing they were drunk.

* * *

Percy, Jason and Leo did not appeared until the next day in the afternoon, all having a terrible hungover and headaches.

They slowly approached the Hades Table, where their respective girlfriends and the three completely immune to alcohol monsters A.K.A Nico, Thalia and Reyna sat, chatting idly.

"Dude! How do you guys do that!?" Leo asked the three the moment the three hungover boys flopped down next to their girlfriends.

"Do what?" Thalia asked, looking at him completely fine, sober, refresh and awake. Even Nico who usual looked like a lively zombie looked better than the three hungover boys.

"Yes, Valdez. What exactly?" Reyna mock-asked. Heck! She looked so normal on one would thought she had touched a single alcohol.

"Still sober, energetic, refresh, hangover-free etc. etc…" Calypso said, helping her boyfriend a little bit.

"Practice, I guess." Thalia said, shrugging her shoulders.

The other excluding Reyna and Nico stared at her.

"What?" Thalia asked incredulously.

Annabeth put down her fork. "Say, how long have you guys been drinking?" The blonde asked.

Nico, Thalia and Reyna paused to think for a while.

"Well..., a ghost boy gave me eggnog laced with alcohol last Christmas when I was staying in the Underworld." Nico explained first. "Then I only drink it when I have a lot of things to do to cope with it."

"A huntress gave me one before I became Artemis' Lieutenant. _'To help relieve stress.'_ She said. Then she was sacrificed in the war." Thalia said like she was talking about the weather.

"And you, Reyna?" They turned to look at the female praetor.

"Romans and Amazons have alcohol on every feasts. And I have attended many feasts with the Amazons and also as a praetor. How do you think?" Reyna gave them an 'Are you stupid?' look.

Everyone oh'ed.

"Then, what are those papers you guys working on?" Piper asked. "I mean, I saw you guys kept doing those papers since yesterday morning." She elaborated.

"Mine is praetor paperwork, since _someone_ won't help me because of Frank ' _I need to spend time with my girlfriend.'_ Zhang." Reyna said, glaring slightly at the other praetor sitting across her.

"Sorry?" Frank tried, feeling a little bit guilty. Hazel punched him lightly on the arm.

"Mine's for the Huntresses." Thalia grumbled, stabbing her chicken chop. "Apparently going hunting doesn't mean there's no paperwork."

"And you?" They turned to look at the son of Hades.

Nico rolled his eyes before taking a bite of his pizza. "Underworld. Unlike Percy, Jason and Hazel, I actually have to take care a small part of the Underworld. Do you think I really go around brooding all those years I'm not in camp?"

They looked away from him, not giving an answer.

"But why do you need to take care of the underworld? Albeit it was a small part of it, but still, why?" Annabeth asked the son of Hades. She was a bit worried because Nico was younger than her. He did not need to shoulder this kind of burden.

Nico gulped down his food before talking. "One of the nicknames you guys gave me - Ghost King, is actually a real title for me. And as a king, even though I'm still 14, give me the responsibility of taking care the underworld. My father trusts me to take care a small part of his domain, and I am not one to disappoint my father." The son of Hades explained.

The others demigods plus one ex-goddess looked at the three demigods in awe and respect.

Reyna herself was a praetor. The one who lends people strength. The leader that leads people to victory. The praetor who put down everything just to find them, crossing the dangerous sea with her Pegasus. She stayed strong for the Romans when Jason's gone, and holding everyone up to battle Gaia when Octavian rebelled.

Then there's Thalia, the girl who single-handedly took care of her little brother when their mother went psycho. The girl who sacrificed her mortality and joined the Huntresses of Artemis for the sake of the world. She lead the others to war, becoming their leader and pillar.

And last but not least, Nico di Angelo.

He lost his sister who was everything to him. He fought for himself in the Labyrinth. He managed to convince his father to help them for not one, but two wars and became one of the strongest demigods by training himself. Nico knew of two camps, never telling anyone for fear of war breaking out. Nico stood up and fought even though everyone avoided him. He came back to save everyone by summoning his undead soldiers even if it would wear him down. Nico did a lot of great things yet no getting any credits and not complaining about it. He even stood against two giants to help them to find the location of the House of Hades, and in return being trapped in a jar and going through Tartarus alone.

Yes, the seven of the Great Prophecy might be the one uniting Greeks and Romans, but it was Reyna, Thalia and Nico who helped them through this. They were the one that became their pillars to lean on. The one who helped them in the quest even if they were not part of it.

Reyna leads the Romans; Thalia leads the Huntresses; and Nico himself already was one man army himself.

If it was Romans, Greeks and Huntresses versus Thalia, Reyna and Nico, the three might actually be the one coming out victorious, with how the three camps/legions/squads arguing and tearing each other apart.

"What are you looking at?" Thalia asked them, with no ill-willed. Reyna and Nico looked at them questionably too.

"Nothing!" All of them except for those three said in union, immediately went back to eat their foods, a new found respect blooming in them for the three leaders that were sitting with them.

Reyna, Thalia and Nico looked at each other before shrugging their shoulders before copying their friends' action. No use to interrogate them when they did not want to say it out.

And one William Solace to fall even stronger for the Son of Hades, his heart beating faster.


End file.
